A Rush of Wings

29 All Things S « ^ »

DARKNESS.

Music pounded, his own. Inferno.

Smelled blood, sour sweat, engine exhaust.

Tasted blood in his mouth, his own.

Something jabbed against his neck. Stung. Cold chemicals flooded his veins. Dulled the pain in his head.

“Mine,” a voice whispered. Unfamiliar. Fading. Fingers touched his face. “I’ll be your god and you’ll love me.”

Darkness. Drug rush. Dante fell, dreaming.

HEATHER SAT IN THE grass beside Stearns’s body, her hand frozen above his motionless chest, longing to touch the man who’d been more of a father to her than James William Wallace, yearned to say good-bye. But she couldn’t force her hand any lower.

He shot Dante in cold blood. And now—

A rush of cold air fluttered Heather’s hair, drew her gaze up. De Noir’s black wings cut through the sky, flapping as he landed. His golden-eyed gaze skipped around the yard. Desperation shadowed his face.

Sirens pierced the silence.

“Where is he?”

“Jordan has him,” she said. “In the van.” S is mine. Her eyes stung.

“I can’t feel him,” De Noir said, voice strained. “Something has obscured our link. Feels like…static.” Fanning his wings, he lifted into the air.

“Wait!” Heather climbed to her feet. She looked around the yard turned killing ground. All dead. A pang of regret pierced her as her gaze fell upon Collins’s body. She remembered their earlier conversation about LaRousse: The man didn’t deserve to die hard.

Neither did you, Trent, she thought, throat tight.

If she stayed, she’d be busy making statements and doing debriefings for hours, possibly days. The CCK had Dante. Dante was nightkind, true. But Elroy Jordan was a sexual sadist who now possessed a victim who healed. One he could “kill” over and over again. She couldn’t afford to lose time.

“Take me with you,” she said.

De Noir hovered in the air, face cold and unreadable.

“I know Jordan’s patterns, I can help. Please.”

De Noir’s taloned hands curled into fists. He dropped to the ground again. The sirens drew closer. Heather ran across the street to Collins’s car, threw open the door and stretched across the seat. Grabbing the briefcase, she ran back to the yard and De Noir.

“Hold on,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Heather draped an arm around De Noir’s neck, heart kicking against her ribs. His wings flared, air gusted, and they rose into the sky. She looked down. Squad cars screeched to a slanting halt in the street before Ronin’s house. Blue lights strobed across the houses, cars, bodies. A block down the street, an ambulance waited, lights flashing, for the all-clear signal from the cops.

The wind of De Noir’s passage blew cold against Heather’s face, frosting her hair, her lashes. Shivering, she shut her eyes. De Noir closed his other arm around her, held her tight and without effort. His heat radiated into her, melting away the cold. She tucked her face into his neck. His warm, earthy smell turned her thoughts to Dante.

Heart aching, muscles knotted, Heather shouted her thought into the night, hoping, somehow, that Dante would hear her.

I’m coming for you.

DARKNESS.

Pain throbbed in his head. His neck. Burned in his shoulders. Muscles twisted. He tried to lower his arms. Metal bit into his wrists. Clunked against more metal.

Handcuffed.

Dante opened his eyes. Red laced his vision. He lay on his side, arms stretched above his head. He smelled cheap tobacco and plastic and the sharp scent of his own blood. A mortal knelt behind him. Gripped his shoulder. Pain wormed and worried into his neck, the base of his skull. Blood trickled hot down his neck and under his shirt.

Papa Prejean’s basement.

Dante jerked down with all his strength. Pain bit into his shoulders again. Clunk-tunk. The cuffs held.

The hand on Dante’s shoulder pinched. Hard.

“Hold still,” an unfamiliar voice said. “You do that again, no telling where this shiv’ll end up.”

Dante squeezed his eyes shut as the shiv dug and scraped. More hot blood flowed down his neck.

“Got it! Hot damn!”

The digging stopped. Dante released the breath he’d been holding and sucked in a lungful of stale air laced with the mortal’s old smoke-and-bile stink; a stink he recognized, but couldn’t name. Like an ice pick jabbing behind his eyes, migraine pain stabbed his thoughts, chipped away at his concentration.

The mortal wiped at his neck. Paper rustled. Then he slapped something across the wound. “Gotcha Batman Band-Aids. Thought you’d like that.”

A fingertip shove to Dante’s shoulder rolled him onto his back. His handcuffs clinked. And, beneath him, plastic crinkled. Dante opened his eyes and winced. A small covered light burned above him in the ceiling. Not a basement, no. A car? No sensation of movement. No engine hum. Not moving.

A shadow shuffled past, silhouetted against the light. Kinda looks like Peeping Tom’s assist—

Elroy the Perv knelt beside Dante, a grin stretching his lips. A sling cradled his left arm against his chest. In his right hand, pinched between two fingers, he displayed a bloodied sliver of plastic. “See this?” he said. “A bug implanted at birth. So you could always be followed. Studied. Et cetera, et cetera. I had to dig mine out by myself.”

Pain slammed through Dante’s skull. Bugs? Implants? An image flickered behind the pain—a woman, short blonde hair, blue eyes, fangs—murmuring, They’re afraid of you, my little True Blood. Pain shattered the image.

Ronin’s low voice: What are you afraid of, True Blood?

A needle pricked the skin on his throat.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Elroy said. “That’s kinda sexy.”

The Perv’s lips, hot and tasting of tobacco, pressed against Dante’s mouth; his kiss as gentle as a fist. As Elroy’s hand glided over Dante’s body, the drugs tumbled him back into the darkness of Papa Prejean’s basement.

Dante-angel?

Let me burn, princess.

HEATHER OPENED HER EYES as De Noir descended, gliding, onto the wrought-iron balcony outside Dante’s bedroom. She slipped her arms from around his neck and stepped down onto the concrete. Her hand felt frozen to the briefcase’s handle. A quick glance revealed bright red fingers, cold, but not iced.

She walked into the unlit bedroom through the opened French windows. The air smelled of candle wax and crisp autumn leaves, smelled of Dante. The sight of the unmade futon, the rumpled sheets, twisted her heart. She closed her eyes.

Focus on finding Jordan. Focus on finding him fast—before he goes to work on Dante and learns he never has to stop.

Heather opened her eyes and strode across the room. As she rounded the corner into the hall, she saw Simone on the stairs, her pale face anxious.

“Lucien told us what happened,” Simone said, stepping onto the landing. “What do you need Trey to do?” Her dark gaze shifted past Heather and up.

De Noir stepped past Heather, buttoning on a black shirt.

Lucien told us what happened. Of course. Heather swallowed back the words she’d planned to say, hard words—Dante took a bullet to the head and now a serial killer has him, just as he said he would, just as he promised, in innocent blood.

Heather said, “I need your brother to do another search for any kind of rentals or purchases recently made by either Ronin or Jordan. Have him do a vehicle search too.”

“D’accord.” Turning, Simone trotted down the stairs.

De Noir glanced at the briefcase. “What’s inside?”

Heather looked up and met his gaze. “Dante’s past.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From my boss,” she said, voice low. “The man who shot Dante.”

De Noir’s jaw tightened. His gaze shifted to a point above and beyond Heather. Tendrils of his black hair snaked up into the now electrified air. The smell of ozone spiked the air. Heather’s hair lifted. Her skin tingled. Lightning strike.

“Have you looked at what’s in that case?”

“No. I’d hoped to give it to Dante.”

De Noir’s gaze dropped and swept over Heather. She saw nothing she recognized in his eyes, human or otherwise. After a moment, he nodded.

“Then we shall look at it together,” he said.

ARM THROBBING, E STEERED the van into a rest stop off I-59. Needed a pick-me-up. He shut off the engine, glanced in the rearview mirror. Dante slept, head turned to one side, handcuffed wrists stretched above him.

E opened the door, slid partway out, then froze. Maybe Dante wasn’t sleeping. Maybe he was faking it and planned some kind of kicking, yelling, rescue-me-bullshit. Better make sure. Climbing back into the van, E crawled past the front seats to the back, and scooted to the air bed.

Dante’s breathing was slow and easy. Strands of black hair partially covered his face. E poked him in the ribs. Nuthin’. Doped and flying sky-high. He grabbed his shoulder, shook him. Nuthin’.

E’s gaze scrolled down the bloodsucker’s hard, yummy body—bondage collar; vintage black NIN T-shirt, rucked up a little, a line of flat belly exposed; chain-strapped black jeans, metal-studded belt, the belt and jeans unfastened at the moment.

E bent over Dante, a shiv sliding into his good right hand. He punched the shiv into Dante’s chest. The bloodsucker’s body spasmed. His breath caught, rattled, then released hard and fast. Blood bubbled up on his lips. But his eyes didn’t open. Out cold.

Damned good drugs, E mused. Wonder if he can heal with the shiv in his chest?

Rummaging through his satchel, E dry-swallowed a handful of pills, then made his way up front again. He hopped out of the van and sauntered to the free-coffee stand. The image of Dante sleeping with the shiv buried in his flesh burned itself into his mind and left him trembling.

HEATHER SAT AT THE kitchen table, the briefcase open on the cobalt-blue tablecloth, and switched on her laptop. De Noir drew up a chair and sat beside her, frowning. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the folder from the briefcase, set it on the table and opened it.

Photos spilled out: some current, taken surreptitiously, Dante unaware; others showed Dante as a teenager, a child, a toddler; the boy’s wary gaze, the toddler’s fanged half smile, the teen’s smirk and raised middle finger.

She handed each photo to De Noir. He studied every image for long moments, jaw tensing, wordless. One photo captured her attention: Dante laughing, his arms around a grinning girl with freckles and long red hair, her face half turned to him. Dante appeared to be twelve, maybe thirteen, the girl eight or nine.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

Heather stared at the picture, at Dante’s happy face, the only photo of him laughing—big brother and guardian angel for another child lost in the system of foster homes and state programs. Handing De Noir the photo, she slid the CD into the laptop’s drive. When a menu popped up, she lined down to the section marked S AND CHLOE and clicked it open. Surreptitiously filmed footage filled the monitor:

In faded jeans and a gray tee, Dante sits cross-legged on the floor, his back against a neatly made bed, his attention focused on the book in his lap. Chloe sits on the bed in lavender cords and pink Pooh sweater, watching him, her sneakered feet kicking idly against the bed frame. A plushie orca is tucked under one arm.

“Sound it out,” she says, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger.

“Kum…for…kumfor…tay…bull…kumfortaybull. Comfortable.”

“You got it!”

“Yeah?” A pleased smile lights Dante’s face.

“Yup,” Chloe confirms. “Now finish the sentence.”

“Pooh’s bed was comfortable and…warm.”

“You learn fast,” Chloe says. “I bet if you didn’t sleep during the day and could go to school, you’d get straight As.”

Dante snorts, then glances back at her from over his shoulder. “I’d have all Fs.”

“For…?” Chloe coaxes, gathering his hair into a ponytail and smoothing its black length between her hands. “What starts with F?”

“Fuck school.”

She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. “Dante-angel!”

A blur of motion, then Dante is suddenly up from the floor and tickling Chloe. She shrieks with laughter, rolling on the bed, her sneakers thumping the mattress. Laughing, he tucks an arm against his side and tries to protect his ribs from her retaliatory fingers.

He tugs free the plushie orca from under Chloe’s arm and swims the toy through the air past her grabbing hands. He stops it at her nose. Leans it forward. “Mmm-wah!” A big sloppy orca kiss.

“Can I brush your hair while you practice printing the alphabet?” Chloe asks.

“Sure,” Dante says, handing the orca back to her.

“Boy, you need to get your ass down to the basement and now,” a man’s voice—bayou-bred and deep—says from off-camera. “Gotta visitor comin’ and gotta cuff you up. You don’t need none of dat school shit for the work you do, petit. Waste o’ time.” The speaker laughs, a cigarette-raspy sound ending in a cough.

“Fuck you,” Dante says. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Chloe’s smile vanishes and she sits up, the plushie held tight against her pink sweater. “Leave him alone,” she says, her voice sharp, her brows slanting down—defiant and pale.

“Hush, you. Or I’ll put my hand upside your head.”

Dante’s hand squeezes Chloe’s knee. She closes her mouth. He looks at the speaker, all expression gone from his face, but fire burns in his dark eyes, a fire the speaker must feel, see.

“You’re gonna need more than handcuffs to hold me if you touch her,” Dante says, his voice low and flat.

Another cigarette-raspy laugh. “Full of attitude, aintcha, boy. Move your ass or I’ll just send little m’selle feisty in your place—”

Dante turns and kisses Chloe’s forehead, smoothes her long hair back from her face. “Night-night, princess. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Worry shadows Chloe’s face. “Dante-angel…”

He shakes his head. “Shhh. Je suis ici. Don’t come down. Not tonight.”

She nods, unhappy. Dante blows her a kiss and walks from the room.

The footage ended. Heather paused a moment—how old was he? Twelve?—then she forced her fingertips from her palms, and clicked on the next section.

Later, eyes burning, she understood why De Noir had said that Dante’s past was something better left unremembered. She understood it would break his heart. And she understood why Stearns had called him a monster.

CHOKING ON BLOOD, DANTE awakened. Darkness. Engine noise. Pain raked his chest. Blood filled his mouth. Turning onto his side, the handcuffs clunk-tunking as he moved, he spat blood on the floor until he could suck in a breath of air.

Dizzied, he listened to the engine’s soothing, steady sound. He glanced down. A knife’s hilt protruded from his chest.

“We’ve entered Alabama,” Elroy said. “Don’t it feel good?”

Dante caught Elroy’s shaded gaze in the rearview mirror. The Perv grinned.

“Never mind the shiv,” he said. “Couldn’t resist. How does it feel?”

Dante coughed, spat, then said, “Fuck you. Take these cuffs off and I’ll show you.” He jerked his arms, rattling the cuffs.

Elroy laughed. “That’s my Bad Seed bro.”

Dante drifted off again as the miles rolled past, not really asleep, but caught in a twilight-zone haze created by drugs and pain. He opened his eyes as the van slowed down, then stopped.

The Perv keyed off the engine and stretched. He slipped between the seats, pausing to close a curtain between the front of the van and the back. He crab-walked over to Dante’s side of the van. Grabbing a battered black satchel, he opened it and pulled out a file folder thick with paper.

“Time for you to learn a few things.” Elroy dropped onto his knees and bent over Dante. “Like who and what you are.” Grabbing the shiv hilt, he yanked the blade out of Dante’s chest.

Refusing to touch his bond with Lucien, Dante tried his links to Von and Simone instead. Pain buzzed through his head as each attempt rebounded, unheard. Whatever the Perv was pumping into his veins had muffled his mind like a thick layer of gauze.

Elroy played with the shiv, twirling the blade up, over and around. Wet with blood, the knife glistened beneath the covered light. On his last over-and-under pass, he drove the blade into Dante’s stomach.

Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Pain stole his voice. Another punch and the pain seared his chest, sucked away his air. He coughed up blood.

“Time to teach you all things S,” Elroy murmured. “Open your eyes.”

Fingers fluttered across Dante’s eyelids. Whispered across his lips. He smelled blood on Elroy’s fingers—his own. He opened his eyes and looked into Elroy’s sweating face. The grin had vanished. His fingers still held the second shiv in Dante’s chest. He pressed down on it. Leaned into it and twisted.

Pain corkscrewed through Dante’s chest and black spots speckled his vision. He bit his lip, determined not to scream, determined not to give the sick little fuck the satisfaction.

Dante-angel?

Shhh. Not now, princess. Gotta wake up. Gotta quit dreaming.

“Listen to me,” Elroy said.

Dante blinked until his vision cleared. Spat blood. Coughed. The handles of two shivs stuck up from his body, one in the belly and one in the chest.

The Perv held up photos. Dante stared. They were of him, but when he was younger, from the years he couldn’t remember. Pain pricked behind his eyes, jabbed his temples.

“You’re part of a project called Bad Seed,” Elroy said. “Me too. In fact, we’re the last surviving members. They got me when I was two or three after my parents did the ol’ you-kill-me-I’ll-kill-you routine.” He held up a photo of a grinning toddler. “Wasn’t I a cutie?”

Elroy picked up a folder, flipped through the contents. “Now you, you they had shortly after conception. They nursed your mama through a difficult pregnancy, then whacked her after you were born. Being a bloodsucker and all, they cut off her head and torched her body.”

Heart pounding, struggling for air, Dante tried to make sense of Elroy’s words. Pain scoured away his thoughts. He coughed. His mother…

Genevieve.

You look so much like her.

Wasps droned and his vision blurred. From a great distance, he heard the Perv say: “She named you before she died. And it amused Mommy-Bitch Moore to let you keep the name. Dante.”

Something smacked hard across Dante’s face, rocking his head to the side. His teeth sliced into his lower lip again. White light sparked and flared at the edges of his vision. Narrowing his gaze against the light, he focused on Elroy’s sallow face.

“I was losin’ ya,” Elroy said. “Your nose is bleeding again, by the way.”

Dante coughed, a lung-tearing spasm that brought up gouts of bright blood. Elroy scooted back out of gouting/spitting range.

“Take out the fucking knives,” Dante whispered after the spasm had passed. “Then go on. Read it to me. Hit me if I pass out. But read it to me.”

The Perv lifted his shades and stared at Dante, hazel eyes full of wonder. “Read to you?” Crawling back over, he grabbed the hilt of the shiv planted in Dante’s chest and pulled it out. Traced it across Dante’s belly, blood trailing in its wake. “My pleasure.”

Dropping his shades back over his eyes, Elroy read to Dante, pushing down on the shiv in his belly or backhanding him or both whenever the migraine threatened to drag him under.

Foster parents informed that subject has an illness that requires special attention and special nutrition, therefore earning them an increased payment….

DANTE REMEMBERED LAROUSSE AT the tavern, saying: Sixty foster homes, two stints in the loony bin. Light pinwheeled and fractured his vision. His head throbbed. His heart raced. He listened.

S’s favorite “blankie” taken from him and burned. S forced to watch and informed the “blankie” was burned because he’d been “bad.”

Foster parents #10 punished S for defiance. They removed the curtains in a room full of windows and locked him in. He stayed in shadowed corners avoiding the sunlight until there were no more shadows….

SUNLIGHT SLANTING ACROSS THE carpet and hurting his eyes, dust motes whirling in the air, fear creeping up his spine—memory yawned wide and Dante fell. Sunlight blistered and crisped his skin. The burned-meat smell curdled in his belly.

Dante sucked in air and coughed up blood. Pain scattered the memory, swept it away. One little piece of knowledge clung for a few moments: Loony bin stay numéro un had happened right after that bit of punishment.

Foster mother #12 has developed a fondness for S and is forming a bond with him. S appears to enjoy her company. He will be removed from her care….

S increasingly defiant. His favorite toy, a plastic alligator on wheels, is taken from him and thrown away. He retaliates by throwing away the foster parents’ cigarettes and beer. S beaten…

S found or stole a guitar and is teaching himself to play it. He has an amazing ear and learns rapidly. Shows true musical talent…

S drugged and brought into the clinic for examination and study. Dr. Wells curious, as am I, to learn just how much a born-vampire can endure physically. The experiments will commence tomorrow….

FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY BUZZED up from below, carried on the wings of Gigeresque wasps: A cold, steel table. Restraints. Needles. Saws. A bloodied baseball bat held by a tech in a face shield and blood-spattered lab coat. White-hot pain wiped the images away. He wasn’t remembering. He was experiencing. Elroy’s fist slammed Dante back into the here and now.

“Read to me,” Dante whispered.

The Perv stared at him for a long moment, licked his lips, then continued reading.

Experiments shall be repeated once S reaches puberty…if vampires have a process like puberty. Shall be fascinating…

S has developed affection for another foster child in his household, a girl named Chloe Basescu. He looks after her. She calls him “Dante-angel” for some reason, perhaps because he protects her from their foster father. S and Chloe often sleep together, but in a nonsexual manner.

S showing signs of what I believe to be vampire puberty: night prowling, sexual promiscuity within his own age group, biting, fascination with blood, no longer satisfied with his daily dose of “medicinal” blood. He yearns to hunt. He seems to be both excited and confused by his feelings. Overwhelmed by his desires. He confides in Chloe. This troubles me….

Time to take Chloe away from S.

Dante backs Chloe into the corner. “Get down,” he whispers. “I won’t let them have you.”

As Chloe crouches, Orem the orca clutched to her chest, Dante stands in front of her. He hisses. Three men in black suits—bad fucking men like Wells, like Papa Prejean, like all the groping assholes who walk down the basement steps—spread out in the white padded room.

Hunger/want/need burns through Dante and their pounding hearts draw him. Their sweaty, hopped-up smell dizzy him. All three rush him and Dante drops low, spinning, slashing with his nails. Blood spurts hot across his face. Someone gurgles. Someone else gets behind him. Dante moves. Punching, kicking, biting. Whirls. The blood smell coils through him; he’s lost to it. Drops to his knees and sinks his teeth into warm flesh. Blood pumps into his mouth, sweeter than licorice, headier than sneaked whiskey, and he can’t get enough. He drinks until nothing’s left.

On his knees, Dante looks around. All three bad-ass men sprawl on the bloodied floor. He swivels, wiping his mouth and reaching for Chloe. His hand freezes at his mouth. His heart thumps hard and fast; breaking.

Chloe…

Dante’s princess, his little sister, his heart. He screamed as the in-between memory rammed past the pain. He screamed, yanking on the handcuffs, coughing up blood, choking. Something sharp jabbed his neck—stung. Cold curled through his veins.

As Dante slid down into drugged darkness, Chloe’s image already fading from his mind—No! Let me keep her!—an answer to a question stood clear in his mind:

What are you afraid of, True Blood?

Not you, Peeping Tom. Not you.

Me.

Someone laughed and Dante didn’t know if it was himself or Elroy. But whoever it was laughed and laughed and laughed.

HEATHER POPPED THE CD out of the laptop. Elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands, weary and heartsick. Dante had been so caught up in the fight, in his rage and blood-hunger, that he’d struck out at everyone near him—including Chloe. She tried to blank out the images she’d watched, tried to forget the sounds she’d heard—too late. The stricken expression on Dante’s face as he looked at Chloe’s body, the desolate sound torn from his throat, would haunt her forever.

Like the scream in the slaughterhouse.

A chair scraped back. De Noir. Heather lowered her hands and looked up. He gathered up the reports, stuffing them back into the folder.

“I’ll burn these,” he said, his voice level.

“No.” She sat up. “Dante needs to know…he needs to see…”

“This?” De Noir waved the folder. “No. He doesn’t. No.” He picked up the CD and closed his fist around it. Plastic cracked. Crumbled.

“What are you doing?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “We need that—”

“For what?” De Noir flung the CD pieces to the floor. “To hurt my child? To tear him apart again? The past cannot be changed.”

Heather stared at De Noir. My child? It clicked then, the relationship between De Noir and Dante—watchful, sheltering, hidden. The sudden gold flecks in Dante’s dark eyes. “Does he know?”

De Noir nodded, then looked away. “I told him tonight. I’d hoped—” He closed his mouth. Shook his head. He touched a finger to the hollow of his throat.

The X-rune pendant was gone. Heather sank back down into her chair. “No wonder he didn’t wait when I asked,” she murmured. “He was running from you.”

“No,” De Noir said. His gaze locked with Heather’s, flared with gold light. “He thought he needed to do penance for Gina and Jay…for the girl he can’t remember.”

Penance. Everything Dante cared about had been taken from him since he’d been a baby. If he cared, someone or something suffered. Heather trailed a hand through her hair. He went to face Ronin alone so no one else would die. Or suffer in his place.

“I need this file to find Dante,” she said. “Elroy Jordan has claimed him. The reason why might be in there.”

“To torture him—just like you told me,” De Noir said. “You warned me that I couldn’t stop it. I refused to listen.”

The regret in De Noir’s gaze tugged at Heather. She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “You thought you could protect him.”

She stood up, crossed to the counter. The faint smell of coffee lingered in the kitchen. Dumping out the old grounds into the trash, she rinsed the filter in the sink, then spooned in fresh coffee.

Elroy Jordan was the Cross-Country Killer. Maybe Ronin had been a part of that, or maybe he’d just pointed Jordan in Dante’s direction. Ronin had known that both Jordan and Dante were part of Johanna Moore’s sociopathology experiment. How?

She poured water into the coffeemaker, set the carafe on the burner, and tapped the on button. What had happened to Ronin? She glanced at De Noir. He stood motionless beside the table, folder clutched in one hand, head bowed. His black hair veiled his face. He appeared to be listening, his body almost quivering with effort.

“Dante,” he breathed. “Ah, hush, child. I will find you.” Lifting his head, De Noir looked at Heather. “I felt him…heard him…for a moment. He’s…” De Noir swallowed whatever else he’d intended to say.

De Noir’s expression told Heather that whatever he’d heard or felt from Dante was far from good. Cold twisted around her heart. “Ronin,” she said. “What happened?”

“Dead.”

So whatever Ronin had planned, exposé or blackmail, had died with him. How much had he told Elroy about Bad Seed? Enough, she figured, just enough to control him. Enough to whet his appetite for the whole story.

Heather listened to the coffee as it trickled into the carafe. So what was Jordan’s plan? S is mine. One certainty iced her thoughts: No matter what, Jordan meant to possess Dante. Forever. And from Seattle to New York, graveyards sheltered the remains of all those Jordan had possessed in the past.

Where was he going? Where was he taking Dante? S is mine. Who had those words been aimed at? Ronin? The cops?

As the rich, roasted smell of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, the final piece of the puzzle locked into place.

Johanna Moore. The words had been meant for Johanna Moore.

Jordan intended to confront her with Dante—S—at his side and under his control.

Heart racing, Heather rushed to De Noir and grabbed the folder’s edge. “I think I know where they’re going,” she said.

JOHANNA RETURNED TO THE hearth with a cup of brandied eggnog and sat down. Burning wood snapped, releasing the smell of pine into the room. Sipping at her eggnog, she flipped open her cell and speed-dialed Gifford again. His continued silence worried her.

On the third ring the call was answered, but Johanna didn’t recognize the voice saying, “Hello? Hello? This is Detective Fiske. Hello?”

“Doctor Johanna Moore, FBI. How is it that you have Agent Gifford’s phone, Detective?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Moore, but Agent Gifford is dead.”

The black, empty night seeped into Johanna, stilled her heart. “How?”

“We’re still not clear on the particulars. We have several bodies at the scene,” Fiske said. “Why was your man here?”

“Surveillance.” The fire snapped the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon into the air. “Are the other dead identified? Perhaps our suspect is among them.”

“Special Agent Craig Stearns and one of ours, Detective Trent Collins.” Emotion laced Fiske’s voice.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Detective,” Johanna said. “Please keep me posted.”

“Who were your people watching?”

“Thomas Ronin.”

“House was rented under that name. I’ll call you if I have any other questions.”

“Fine, Detective. Thank you.” Johanna ended the call.

She gazed at the fire, the dancing flames calming her, ordering her thoughts. She walked from the living room to her office and stepped behind her desk. She glanced at the GPS receiver. No signal. Like E, S was now offline. Were they together? Was Ronin with them?

Johanna walked to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Touching the pane of glass between her and the winter sky, she closed her eyes. She wished for snow.

Stearns and Wallace had cost her a good man, one she’d miss for years to come. What had happened in New Orleans?

Opening her eyes, Johanna turned from the window. She needed to find her beautiful True Blood child before Ronin corrupted him, twisted him. And if her père de sang was bringing E and S home?

Then she’d need strength. Johanna pulled on her coat and tugged gloves over her hands—a habit left over from her mortal life. She walked out into the night, her breath a pale plume in the air, and hunted.

DUCKING FROM THE COLD, damp wind, Heather pressed her face against Von’s leather-jacketed back as the nomad gunned his Harley up the interstate toward Louis Armstrong International. She kept her arms wrapped tight around the nomad’s waist, grateful for the gloves and helmet Simone had lent her. The wind blew through Von’s hair, whipping its length from side to side.

Von steered the bike through traffic, swooping in, out, and between cars and semis with heart-stopping speed. The night blurred past, streaked with red and silver.

After Trey ferreted out Johanna Moore’s address on the net, Heather had booked a seat on the next flight to D.C. She was gambling on the chance that Elroy Jordan was heading “home” to Moore, but it felt right.

De Noir had refused a seat on the plane, said: I’ll get there my own way.

She wondered if he winged overhead even now, hair and lashes white with frost.

Trey had also discovered a purchase made by a C. K. Cross a few days earlier. A white Chevy van with customized windows and some interior alterations. The dealership had provided the temporary license plate number, but Heather hadn’t passed the number on to the police. If Jordan was pulled over by cops, more people would die. Like Collins.

And Dante…Heather couldn’t be sure of his reaction. She remembered the nightmare scene captured on the CD, remembered the cold fury on Dante’s face as he’d murdered the Prejeans.

Dante sits cross-legged in a corner of the dining room, flipping through a music mag—Metal Scene, maybe—headphones in his ears. In his own world, but tensed, coiled, ready for hell in a moment’s notice.

Dante removes his headphones when any of the other four foster kids in the house approach him, speaking Cajun with a couple, English with another; a quick, tilted smile. One teen, about the same age, maybe thirteen or fourteen, sits beside Dante for a time, putting his head on Dante’s shoulder. Dante loops an arm around the boy and they sit on the floor together, looking at the mag.

Then, a heartbeat later, hell yawns open. Adelaide “Mama” Prejean smacks a blonde girl setting the table, telling her she’s “doing it ass-backwards.” Cecil “Papa” Prejean, with an irritated grunt, backhands the girl and knocks her to the floor.

Dante rises so fast, even the camera can’t capture his movement. The other boy sitting on the floor holds the fluttering mag, mouth open. Dante punches Mama Prejean, knocking her three feet across the room. He leaps on her, taking her to the floor. He pounds her head against the hardwood until the skull splits, blood and brains splashing across the grain, across Dante’s hands.

Dante swivels, stands, and moves again. He pins a stunned Papa Prejean against the wall and tears into his throat with his fingernails, ripping it wide open. Blood sprays onto Dante’s ecstatic face. He licks it from his lips, his fingers.

Once Papa Prejean’s done spurting, Dante lets go and the body slumps to the floor. Dante gathers the other kids and tells them they need to get out. He searches the bodies for credit spikes, cash, anything of value. Ransacks Mama Prejean’s purse. He divvies everything up between the other four kids, keeping nothing for himself.

Once the others have gone, Dante sprinkles lighter fluid from the barbecue throughout the house, then fetches gasoline from the garage. Pours it over the bodies. He lights a match. Whoomf! He lingers a moment before leaving the Prejean house for the last time.

Dante watches the blaze from the street. Caught in the flickering shadows, his beautiful bloodstained face is rapt.

Heather remembered Dante standing in front of the anarchy symbol, saying: Freedom is the result of rage.

He’d won freedom for only four that night. Project Bad Seed had picked him up, then proceeded to fragment and bury his memory. Again. Wound him up, then turned him loose.

Dante had survived the streets. But would he survive his past?

Von swung the bike onto an exit ramp, downshifted. “Almost there,” he shouted.

Stearns had called Dante a monster; but the real monsters were the people behind Project Bad Seed—Dr. Johanna Moore and Dr. Robert Wells. No wonder Moore had been so knowledgeable at the Academy, her profiles eerily accurate. She’d helped create the killers the Bureau profiled.

Had Bad Seed failed or succeeded with Dante? The murder of the Prejeans disturbed Heather, but knowing the torture he’d endured at their hands and at the hands of fifty-nine other pairs of foster parents—the worst Louisiana had to offer—understandable. Although she’d always believed there were no excuses for murder, there were reasons.

And in this case—a boy pushed to the brink and beyond—all she saw were shades of gray, even though she’d been trained to see only black and white; the law was either upheld or the law was broken. Simple. But was it?

Could Dante have just run away? Abandoning the other kids to their fate? If the project had been successful, Dante would’ve thought only of himself and used the others to his own gain. Never would have put himself in harm’s way for a little girl. Never would have wept for her. Never would have walked alone into a slaughterhouse for a friend, willing to sacrifice himself.

I have a promise to keep.

But if the project had failed, he never would have murdered.

The bright lights of the airport glimmered ahead in the cold air. Heather looked over Von’s shoulder as he opened the bike up again. Her thoughts shifted back to her conversation with Collins. Five bodies in a tavern. A fire. Arson. LaRousse and Davis, dead.

In fact, they’d been out to Prejean’s with an arrest warrant….

Shit spins out of control.

Bad blood between Dante and LaRousse.

Heather’s muscles knotted. Her thoughts led her to a path she didn’t want to walk. What if Jay’s death and Dante’s inability to protect him, his failure to keep him alive, had triggered the same impulses that’d followed Chloe’s death? What if the project had succeeded, and Ronin had spun the right stressors into action?

What if Dante had been at the tavern? What if he’d taken his first step on the serial-killing trail? A trail he planned to keep walking?

Heather tightened her arms around Von’s middle. For once, she hoped her intuition was wrong, her instincts false.

He murdered the Prejeans and torched their house.

Von eased up on the throttle and downshifted as he steered the Harley into the departure/arrivals lane. The bike rumbled, the sound rolling back like thunder from the buildings. A few people glanced up, startled by the noise. Von eased the Harley up against the curb, then lowered the kickstand.

Heather swung off the bike. She unstrapped the helmet and handed it to the nomad. Von’s windblown hair fell into place, gleamed like dark silk beneath the lights.

“I’ll come with you,” Von said, lifting his shades to the top of his head. “You need a bodyguard, darlin’, and I’m willing.”

Heather looked into the nomad’s green eyes. The crescent moon tattoo glittered like ice in the light.

“De Noir’s gonna be there. But thanks.”

“Nothing against Lucien, but your safety ain’t gonna be his prime concern.”

Heather lifted an eyebrow. “And it would be with you?”

“For Dante, man,” Von said. “I know he cares about you.”

Heather swallowed. “He matters to me, too,” she said. “But dawn’s coming. You’ll be Sleeping soon.”

“Look, every time I doze off, just punch me. Hard.”

“I’ve got enough to worry about without hauling your sleepy ass around D.C.,” Heather said with a quick smile. “Thanks again, but I’ve been taking care of myself most of my life. I know what I’m doing.”

Von flashed a wicked grin. “No doubt, darlin’. No doubt at all.” He lowered his shades, settled them back into place.

“And we need someone here in case I’m wrong about Jordan.”

“But you know you ain’t,” Von said, nudging the kickstand up and twisting the throttle. The Harley’s rumble revved into a roar. “Good flight,” he said. “And even better hunting. Bring him back, darlin’.” Kicking the bike into gear, the nomad gunned it into the through lane.

Heather walked into the terminal, purse looped over her shoulder. Von’s words circled through her mind—I know he cares about you. And she knew in that moment that Dante needed a voice—one that would deliver justice for his lost years and stolen, brutalized childhood, and for his murdered and discarded mother.

Dante’s life had never been his own.

Dante had spoken when he’d killed the Prejeans; spoken to the monsters hiding in the shadows, watching and recording. Had Dante been a voice for Chloe?

And had Dante spoken again in the tavern, dazed, heartbroken, and lost to the past; spoken for Jay? Had he followed programming implanted by Moore? Or simply given in to his own dark nature?

Heather strode to the security desk to pick up a law enforcement permit for her .38. Pulling her badge from her pocket, she handed it to the bored guard.

Dante’s mind had been damaged, but his heart was strong, compassionate. Having laid beside him, wrapped in his arms, Heather knew Dante could never be like Elroy Jordan, killing for pleasure, for power.

Oh? And when he fed? When he hunted for blood?

How about when he tore open Cecil Prejean’s throat?

Would she have to speak for his victims? Could she speak for his victims?

Heather felt hollow inside, riddled with doubt. She’d tumbled head over heels for a guy who wasn’t even human, and a killer. Yet, how could he be expected to answer for actions he couldn’t even remember? She’d deal with that soon enough.

After she found him; after she saved him.

AS E STEERED THE VAN through Georgia, his gaze kept sliding up to the rearview mirror, sneaking peeks at the unconscious bloodsucker—drugged and handcuffed. A shiv still poked up from his belly. An electric tingle shot through E at the sight. He rubbed himself through his jeans. Soon, he promised himself.

When Dante’d started screaming while he read to him from his file, E’d stared, more than a little freaked. The handcuffs had clinked and clunked and the van had rocked and shuddered until E’d been scared that Dante’d pull it apart. That was when he’d dropped the file and grabbed another syringe, filling it to the max with bloodsucker dope and jabbing it into Dante’s neck.

Then Dante’d started laughing.

Dante laughs, the sound of it—low and dark and uncontained, broken somehow. Finally, E laughs with him, because it is pretty funny, accidentally offing the person you’re trying to protect…hilarious! Hysterical, even, and this thought sends E into another round of doubled-over-tears-in-the-eyes laughter.

Dante’s eyes close, tears sliding from the corners, as the drugs go to work. Laughed himself to tears too, E thinks, enjoying their camaraderie. His Bad Seed bro lapses into silence.

A blaring horn snapped E to the present. Headlights loomed in the rearview mirror. Busy eyeing Dante, E’d slowed to an old-lady dawdle in the fast lane. Although his first instinct was to slam on the brakes, then shiv the tailgating bastard, E slid the van into the slow lane. Last thing he wanted was the law on his tail.

The tailgating bastard blew past and E gritted his teeth as the bastard leaned on the horn one more time. E memorized the license number for future reference. He grinned. His gaze flicked back to the rear view, to Dante.

Read to me.

Those words from Dante’s bloodstained lips had sent shivers down E’s spine. Still did. E squirmed in the driver’s seat, restless, aching. Hungry. Dawn was a couple of hours away and Dante’d Sleep with a capital S for the rest of the day. E’d catch a few winks then. Maybe a bite to eat.

And his Bad Seed bro? Would he need a bite, too? Could be fun, rounding up a tasty meal for Dante.

E squirmed. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t wait anymore.

He pulled the van into the next rest stop, parking as far from the other cars and semis as possible. He shut off the engine. Keyed it to AC and popped in Inferno’s latest CD. Punched up the volume to mask the screams. The music pounded and shredded while Dante’s sexy voice growled and whispered:

You try to kiss away my feelings / you need to change me / want to suck me dry…

E crawled into the back, yanking the curtain closed behind him. His broken wrist throbbed, but that didn’t matter. He’d down some pills when he was done with Dante.

E knelt beside the air bed and brushed the hair back from Dante’s face. His gaze lingered on the blood smeared under his nose and across his lips.

“Like an angel,” E whispered, but the angel he pictured had black feathered wings and dark fuck-me eyes.

I only trust my rage / you mean nothing / maybe you never did / and that scares me…

Wrapping his fingers around the handle of the shiv in Dante’s belly, he pulled it out. Blood oozed onto the bloodsucker’s white skin. He slipped his hand under Dante’s T-shirt, sliding it along his fevered, blood-sticky chest. The wounds in his chest were almost healed.

Golden fire filled E, set his body alight. His heart galloped, shaking his body with the intensity of its rhythm. He trailed his hand down across Dante’s flat belly, past his unbuckled belt and into his unfastened jeans. The god indulged himself in another round of exploration.

Breathing fast, E pulled his hand out of Dante’s jeans. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again golden cords connected him to his Bad Seed bro at the forehead, belly button and crotch.

E picked up Navarro’s book of poetry and, sitting back on his heels, read to Dante.

I feel her there

in the dark

waiting to feed

upon my dreams

her tail, iridescent, coils

holds me prisoner

she sucks my breath

drinks me in

I burn beneath her

within her

a dying star

THE TASTE OF HONEY, sweet and thick, touched E’s tongue. He closed the bloodstained book and set it on the floor. Knee-walking to the air bed, he straddled Dante. He leaned over and pressed his lips against Dante’s. “I’m your god. I control every breath you take.”

Dante’s eyes opened, pupils dilated, ringed with brown.

“Name the one you love.”

“It ain’t you,” Dante whispered, words drug-thick.

A flick of his wrist and a shiv dropped into E’s right hand. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the smell of blood. Underneath, he caught a whiff of something sweeter. He frowned. A familiar scent. Leaning in, he sniffed Dante’s throat. Pushed up his T-shirt. Smelled his chest. Blood and the faint scent of…lilac.

E’s thoughts whirled back to the bloodsucker’s house and the sofa he’d awakened on after plowing into the Big Guy. Whirled back to the woman nestled in the chair across from the sofa, tendrils of red hair across her lovely sleeping face. Whirled back to standing over her, shivs in hand, a benevolent god before a supplicant. Whirled back to bending over her and drinking in her scent. Warm and sweet—lilac. Like the scent that clung to Dante.

E straightened. Bitter truth wiped the honey taste from his tongue, boiled and bubbled in his belly like fresh tar. E’d never been closer to his Heather than at that moment, hunched over her, smelling her, and he hadn’t laid a hand on her—but Dante had, the back-stabbing little bloodsucker.

“You were with Heather,” E said, voice low and full of righteous wrath. “She’s mine. She’s always been mine. She follows me.”

“She’s not following you. She’s hunting you. She ain’t yours.”

“Name the one you love,” E snarled.

“No.”

“She’s mine!”

E plunged the shiv into Dante’s chest, then yanked it free and punched it back in. Blood flew and spattered. The golden cords linking E to Dante snapped, unraveled, spraying golden light into the air.

Stabbing and slicing, E went to work. Dante turned his face away, eyes closed in pain, blood foaming on his lips. He twisted, trying to dump E off, but E just grinned and squeezed with his thighs, enjoying the ride.

Had Dante fucked Heather? Drank her blood? Had she asked for more?

Breathing hard and fast, he parked the shiv between Dante’s ribs, then grabbed his chin with bloodied fingers. E wished he had two good hands to lock around Dante’s pale throat. As he forced Dante to face him, the bloodsucker’s eyes opened. Gold and red flecked the thin ring of iris, glimmered in the depths of his dilated pupils.

“Enough,” Dante said, voice bubbling with blood.

Pain shafted E’s head, skewered his eyeballs, and lanced his ears. His hand flew up to his temple. He squeezed his eyes shut. Pain scorched his brain.

E screamed.